January 23, 2012

For All The Ladies-In-Waiting: A Reprise

*We interrupt this wedding planning extravaganza to bring you this heartfelt message*

As I have posted before, I have been personally struggling with my own relationship for quite some time now, feeling the frustrations many a hopeful girlfriend has felt, waiting for the love of their lives to tell them they are their one-and-only as well.

With such a prolonged troubled state, I wasn't sure if everything was going to go alright, and it looked like for a while my sanity and patience would run out before my boyfriend would be given the chance to feel comfortable proposing.

Well on the millionth night I was thinking about the matter, lying awake in bed, I was yearning for the relationship we once had a couple years ago, happy, relaxed, wandering our way through college...

I thought about the possible mistake of moving in with him, thinking that it gave me so much stress because I thought it was such a BIG DEAL. Because in a sense, yes, it was a BIG DEAL, but not as much as I made it out to be.

Suddenly I felt pressures to be a "wife", a strong and put-together woman that would be worth marrying, partly because I thought that was the logical progression of things, partly in order to try to persuade him to see that proposing "made sense" and was the proper path for us.

The problem is, I was more of a mess at that time than I have EVER been, and failure to live up to my high standards was everywhere. As time went on and no ring came, I felt more uneasy about trying to fill a wife's shoes without any promise that I would ever truly be one.

Basically I couldn't relax around him anymore, which lead to daily stress and tension between us, which I have no idea how he put with...

But suddenly a thought came to me..."Why does it have to be husband and wife living together? Why can't he just be my roommate that happens to be my boyfriend?"

*pause*

My heartrate lowered, my mind stopped racing, and a large weight was lifted from my shoulders.

I realized I missed just being his girlfriend.

It all seemed so easy now, I thought "I can do this, I was good at the girlfriend thing." XD And now, even though it will still take time to truly be comfortable and happy again, I can enjoy my boyfriend more and more instead of fearing his rejection 24/7. And things are good.

I don't know if I'll have him as a husband, but I'm 100% sure I have his heart 100% as a boyfriend.

I figure all the stress that it has caused me has made me WANT to wait for marriage, made me realize I am more scared about the responsibilities of being a wife than I thought, and made me realize I do trust my boyfriend's judgement for when a "right" time would be. (He's pretty smart, he'll figure it out. :) )

Will the fears of measuring up to "wife standards" still be with me if he proposes? Yes.